Top Spot at the Box Office Ends in a Tie on a Slow Weekend

With a 28 percent decline in the take at the box office from the same weekend last year, no one is going to be crowing about the last three days.

As it stands right now, House at the End of the Street and End of Watch are both claiming to have taken $13 million this weekend, so the real number one won’t be known until later in the day until the actuals are reported. Suffice it to say, this is a fight of mediocre returns, however. End did about average for cop movies, but House actually came in a little bit ahead of the norm. Considering the budgets – $7 million for End and $10 million for House – both studios are still looking at profits in the not too distant future.

The new Clint Eastwood vehicle, Trouble with the Curve, came in with $12.7 million, although some are saying its up there in the tie for first place. Either way, that is way off the mark for baseball movies as of late.

Finding Nemo 3D dropped 43.4 percent to land in fourth place with $9.4 million. It is definitely looking like 3D re-releases aren’t going to do as well as some thought.

Fifth place went to Resident Evil: Retribution with another $6.7 million, but it’s still not doing that will with only $33.4 million domestic so far off of a $65 million budget.

While I normally don’t come out of the top five, for all of the coverage I’ve given Dredd 3D – including reviewing it – I’ll sadly report it landed in sixth with $6.3 million. The producers already said it needed to hit $50 million in the U.S. to even consider a sequel, and that looks out of the question now.

Next week’s big releases are Hotel Transylvania, Looper and Won’t Back Down. With the way things have been going as of late at the box office, I wouldn’t expect to see any of these to be break out hits.